After about 3 months Colorado State Patrol came over for a VIN inspection of my '60 Sedan that I purchased out of Nevada.

They saw right off that the leading "0" in the VIN number on the title is missing...

Now I have to take it over to the next town and have a state inspector look the car over and do what they call a "Certified VIN Inspection" and they have to find the Hidden VIN and compare it to the actual VIN. This is easy enough, I scraped the undercoating off and got down to the Hidden VIN. Now the door VIN is 00769K101886 and the hidden VIN is 60K101886. I know it is not the full VIN and the K101886 matches but is the 60 on the hidden the year and not supposed to be the 69 for body style?

In what Corvair documentation does it state how the hidden VIN is decoded? I am expecting that they will ask this question?

Also the stamping is poor and the top half of the K and the 88 is almost all missing. I hope they do not get crazy about this.

Richard,Are you saying that the Title paperwork has the V.I.N. starting with 000769K ?If so that is an obvious typographical error.As seen on the stamped steel plate there are only two 0 positions on the V.I.N. and these indicate the model year (0 for 1960) and the body style 0769 (Chevrolet code for a Corvair 700 series 4 door sedan)The hidden V.I.N. is of NO help since it verifies the unit serial number, which is the important part of the Code, providing the prefix info is correct on the V.I.N. which it is.Do you have a 1960 Shop Manual? If not, I can scan the necessary page for you to show them that the V.I.N. should only have two "0"s in the prefix.

At my state inspection office, I saw a big colorful book that explained the locations and decoding of hidden VIN numbers as well as attachment methods for the regular VIN plates. This was not an Idaho book but rather a book evidently sold to motor vehicle departments nationwide. For obvious reasons, it's not available to the general public. It's pretty likely that the Colorado DMV has access to a similar book.

I was surprised that the Idaho DMV lady let me see it. The Washington DMV, which I also deal with frequently, won't let the public within the windowless inspection room, let alone let the public see the book.

Minnesotans dont give a shit. I told the DMV that i payed $300 for a shiny 50' Buick with half the VIN plate missing. They just looked at the old title, made sure the signature matched the name and said whoopty @#$%& on the rest.

Virginia is a mixed bag. At my local office, the staff is great. Some things take a little while to figure out, but they always get it done. Anytime it's above them, I have to send stuff to HQ in Richmond and my apps get routed to a beaurocrat with a rubber "no" stamp. Very frustrating.

My friend's 63 Falcon only has the last digits on the title. He has to get the Police Theft division to verify the VIN and correct it. After weeks and hours of arguing about there was nothing he could do, the cop said for $1000 he could fix it. My friend had his cel phone recording the conversation. I listened and it is funnier than the old Abbott and Costello "who's on first". Except for the $1000.